Promoting Rural Development- Indispensible For Future

We are a subsistence agrarian economy. Anybody likes it or not this is an undisputable reality. Thousands of researches on different ‘development models’ are in surface today but we are still making persistent efforts and dragging ourselves up to be with the time. Economically, this development debacle has been a very very costly exercise and still in the continuum.

There has been some progress above all these years in rural areas of Nepal talking particularly about hilly regions. Per capita have increased, accessibility to those areas have eased the problem of supplies; mobility has become easier due to increase in volume of rural roads. But we can also see different scenario just at the other side of the coin. We see a depressive picture as a ‘hill economy’ raising many questions for our sustainable growth when hill accounts more than 80 percent of the territory of the country.

Countrymen in hill settlements had many challenges for survival in earlier times primarily to sustain their livelihood. The productivity was very low thanks to primitive system of cultivation, lack of irrigation and unproductive rugged terrain. We have not realized that almost same kind of status quo still prevalent in the rural hill economy today. Nothing much has been changed. If the inbound supplies of rural areas are obstructed, even today this impact directly hits the livelihood there, making it far more difficult than yesteryears because the food output there is significantly reduced due labour shortage, low precipitation and peoples’ interest towards cash crops. If migrant labors from urban areas and gulf don’t support with hard earned cash the acrimonious situation will prevail there.

The planners have not shifted their focus to the village as yet but are just lost in the hustle bustle of the cities. Their unscrupulous attitude has simply ignored peoples’ earnest desire of development. They have left this duty at the hands of community and NGOs who lack resources deliberatively. Combination and allocation of sustainable ideas and resources are what rural areas need today.

Hilly areas of Nepal have dispersed settlements and in such a state the cost of development is very high. Outreach of infrastructures like electricity transmission line, drinking water supply, road network in those places generate heavy expenditure. Therefore, our scattered households are also the reason behind the situation of unbalanced distribution of amenities.

Let us promote our small Haat, Bazars into rural towns allocating funds to improve their infrastructures. Give emphasis to those rural towns which are adjacent to the rivers or water bodies which ensures clean drinking water for a long run. Concentrated settlements minimize the haphazard construction of rural roads which are often the cause of landslides, water relapse problems, deforestation and environmental degradation.

We need to locate or relocate the areas for settlements and forests and cultivation. Such distribution will make a big significance when our territory is going to be divided into many units. Economic viability is a primary attribute of an able state.

Let us think measures to come and concentrate the foreign earned remittance in villages with any means. That may bring new opportunities and investments if carefully channelised. Different locations can be promoted as ‘one village one product’ concept according to their specialization and to enhance commercialization.

Boost rural tourism by developing specific outdoor locations and preserving old traditional artifacts, temples and structures. This may bring jobs to the rural youths and minimize out migration from villages. It will also minimize the trend of migration to Terai reducing pressure there which is said as the bread basket of the country. Becoming self-sustainable, less dependable to the Terai is indispensible for sustainable future. This cannot be a reality until and unless the government carries revolutionary initiatives and jumps into this ‘model’ of development.

Kamal Khanal
Kamal_kh@hotmail.com